A
US Navy destroyer has entered the Black Sea in what the Sixth Fleet
says is a routine deployment to promote peace and stability. However,
the USS Porter (DDG-78) was just outfitted with a new missile system
due to what the Navy called a “Russian threat.”

Turkish
observers spotted the Porter sailing through the Bosporus on Monday,
the first US Navy ship to enter the Black Sea this year.

The
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer will “conduct
routine operations during a routine deployment,” the
US Sixth Fleet

The
Sixth Fleet is the US Navy’s command for Europe and Africa, with
the headquarters in Naples, Italy. The Porter, along with three
sister ships of the same class, is based out of Rota, Spain.

While
the Sixth Fleet said Porter’s cruise is “meant
to enhance maritime security and stability, readiness, and naval
capability with our allies and partners,” the
ship’s deployment is part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, NATO’s
ongoing saber-rattling effort along the Russian borders. One of the
Porter’s ports of call will be Odessa in Ukraine.

In
March, the destroyer was the first Navy ship to test the new SeaRAM
missile defense system, urgently developed by weapons manufacturer
Raytheon to counter “a
new Russian threat,” according
to the US
Naval Institute.
The SeaRAM launchers replaced Phalanx point-defense mounts, and was
clearly visible as the Porter sailed through the Bosporus Monday
morning.

DDG-78
and her three system ships were deployed to Spain as part of the US
missile defense program, to complement ground stations in Eastern
Europe. The ground interceptor station in Deveselu, Romania, came
online on
May 12. While the US insists the missile shield is aimed against Iran
and not Russia, Moscow remains skeptical.

The
Porter took part in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launching Tomahawk
cruise missiles into the country. A decade later, it was equipped
with RIM-161 Standard Missile interceptors, becoming part of the
Aegis missile defense system. At that point it was assigned a
permanent berth in Spain as part of the Sixth Fleet.

As
the US does not border the Black Sea, the Porter’s stay in the area
will be limited to no longer than 21 days, under the terms of the
1936 Montreux Convention regulating the transit of warships through
the twin straits controlled by Turkey.

US
Navy warships have been rotating in and out of the Black Sea since
2014, when Ukraine plunged into turmoil following the ousting of
President Victor Yanukovich. The last USN ship to visit the region
was the USS Donald Cook in 2015.

This is the view from the war-mongering Guardian

Nato
countries begin largest war game in eastern Europe since cold war

Ten-day
military exercise, Anaconda-2016, will involve 31,000 troops and
thousands of vehicles from 24 countries

The
largest war game in eastern Europe since the end of the cold war has
started in Poland, as Nato and partner countries seek to mount a
display of strength as a response to concerns about Russia’s
assertiveness and actions.

The
10-day military exercise, involving 31,000 troops and thousands of
vehicles from 24 countries, has been welcomed among Nato’s allies
in the region, though defence experts warn that any mishap could
prompt an offensive reaction from Moscow.

A
defence attache at a European embassy in Warsaw said the “nightmare
scenario” of the exercise, named Anaconda-2016, would be “a
mishap, a miscalculation which the Russians construe, or choose to
construe, as an offensive action”.

Russian
jets routinely breach Nordic countries’ airspace and in April they
spectacularly “buzzed” the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea.

The
exercise, which US and Polish officials formally launched near
Warsaw, is billed as a test of cooperation between allied commands
and troops in responding to military, chemical and cyber threats.

It
represents the biggest movement of foreign allied troops in Poland in
peace time. For the first time since the Nazi invasion of
Soviet-occupied Poland began on 22 June 1941, German tanks will cross
the country from west to east.

Multinational
operations publicised so far include an airdrop involving 1,130
parachutists over the northern Polish city of Toruń on Tuesday –
including 500 US troops and 230 British ones – engineers building a
bridge to carry 300 vehicles over the Vistula river and a night-time
“assault” involving 35 helicopters.

Marcin
Zaborowski, a Polish defence analyst at the Centre for European
Policy Analysis in Warsaw, said: “In Poland we see the exercise as
a reassurance measure from the US and Nato. The defence needs of
central and eastern Europe are real. The scope and numbers of
Anaconda are no match for the Russian exercises that go on all the
time just across the border.”

But
Zaborowski also acknowledged that the backdrop to the exercise was
“tense, and accidents can happen”.

Anaconda-2016
is a prelude to Nato’s summit in Warsaw on 8-9 July, which is
expected to agree to position significant numbers of troops and
equipment in Poland and the Baltic states.

It
comes within weeks of the US switching on a powerful ballistic
missile shield at Deveselu in Romania, as part of a “defence
umbrella” that Washington says will stretch from Greenland to the
Azores.

Last
month, building work began on a similar missile interception base at
Redzikowo, a village in northern Poland.

The
exercise comes at a sensitive time for Poland’s military, following
the sacking or forced retirement of a quarter of the country’s
generals since the nationalist Law and Justice government came to
power in October last year.

So
harsh have the cuts to the top brass been that the Polish armed
forces recently found themselves unable to provide a general for
Nato’s multinational command centre at Szczecin.

Professional
soldiers are particularly worried about a lack of clarity surrounding
the creation and role of a 17-brigade territorial army, drawn in part
from the 35,000 members of Poland’s gun clubs and paramilitary
groups, some of which, it is feared, are linked to the country’s
racist football hooligans. Two of the volunteer brigades are set to
assist the professional Polish army during Anaconda.

The
Guardian understands from military sources that there has been little
consultation over politicians’ long-term vision for the volunteers,
described last week by the plenipotentiary minister Grzegorz Kwaśniak
as “a fifth force after land, sea, air and special forces”.

A
western defence expert confirmed that there was concern about
government interference in Poland’s military. “Poland is highly
regarded internationally. In the past 15 years, they spent a lot of
money and created one of the best armies in the region. They made big
sacrifices in Afghanistan. They lost 40 soldiers. It is not clear
what the government thinks it needs to improve,” he said.

And the Russian response -

Moscow
calls NATO buildup in E. Europe ‘unjustified’ as largest drills
since Cold War kick off

Over
31,000 troops from 24 countries are taking part in NATO’s
Anaconda-2016 war drills in Poland – the largest war games in
eastern Europe since the Cold War. Moscow says that the NATO military
presence is unjustified.

US
Army Europe, which heads the exercise, says that the massive war
games are “to
train, exercise and integrate Polish national command and force
structures into an allied, joint, multinational
environment.” Anaconda-2016
will be formally closed by officials at a ceremony in Warsaw on June
17.

While
the scenario for the drill is understandably kept secret, the
statement briefly says it will be focused on conventional warfare,
meaning the bloc will be testing its capacity to “deploy,
mass and sustain combat power” against
an enemy more capable and well-trained than the rebel groupings which
the US and its allies fought against in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The
massive war games also play well with the current right-wing
government in Warsaw which frequently argues that NATO must
permanently deploy troops in eastern Europe to deter what the bloc
keeps calling “Russian
assertiveness.”

Anaconda-2016
also comes ahead of an upcoming NATO Warsaw summit, expected to
decide that significant numbers of NATO troops and equipment will be
based in Poland and in the Baltic states, where the bloc is holding
major sea drills, the BALTOPS, which kicked off on Friday in Estonia.

While
the West claims that the string of recent military drills is to
assure eastern Europe of NATO’s full commitment to defending them
against Russia, Moscow maintains it has no plans at all to interfere
with any country in the region.

Speaking
to journalists on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
stated, “I
am convinced that every serious and honest politician is well aware
that Russia will never invade any NATO member. We have no such
plans.”

He
asserted that “there
are no threats in this part of the world whatsoever, that would
justify [NATO’s] build-up here.”

In
the meantime, Lavrov said, NATO’s decision to move its military
infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders and accept new members
will be seen in a negative light in Moscow. “Here,
Russia’s sovereign right to ensure its security will come into
force, [making use] of methods adequate to [respond to] today’s
challenges.”

The
very existence of NATO as an organization is no threat to Russia, he
said, which is not the case when it comes to the bloc’s “practical
actions” in
terms of moving its military infrastructure closer to Russian
borders, or using military force which violates international
law, “as
it was in cases of Libya and Yugoslavia.”

However,
NATO’s leadership has already said there will be no changes to
stationing more troops in Poland after the Warsaw Summit, sending “a
clear signal that an attack on Poland will be considered an attack on
the whole Alliance,” the
bloc’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg told reporters following
his meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda last Wednesday.

“If
you listen [to them], you might get a feeling that NATO is a harmless
sheep cornered by ‘predators’ such as Russia and other countries
disobedient to the US,” spokesman
for Russian Defense Ministry Igor Konashenkov mockingly commented on
Monday.

NATO
currently plans to station four battalions in the region – one each
in Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia. A typical US army
battalion consists of up to 800 soldiers. The bloc also plans to set
up several headquarters and command and control infrastructures, as
well as weapons and ammunition depots in the region.

NATO
has launched a massive military build-up in the Baltic states and
eastern Europe, citing what it calls Russian aggression in the
region. In May of last year, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
announced that the bloc was planning to deploy new command units in
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland, as well as Bulgaria and
Romania. Moscow, in turn, sees NATO’s drive eastwards as aggressive
and in violation of post-Cold War agreements.